为什么英语中懦弱胆小的人叫奇肯？鸡是怎么和胆小鬼联系在一起的？你可能不知道，这件事也和著名的莎士比亚有关。

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anyone who refuses a double-dog dare is liable to be labeled a chicken . how dogs found their way into dare culture remains a bit of a mystery—EAA

任何拒绝接受挑战的人都很容易被贴上懦夫(chicken)的标签。为什么挑战(double-dog dare)会和狗发生关系还是个谜，但懦夫被称为chicken的原因有些明朗。

according to The Oxford English dictionary，The earliest written instance of The word chicken in The craven sense comes from William shake spearsforts Chickens，“he wrote，describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield”。根据《牛津英语词典》的解释，chicken一词最古老的书面例子是威廉莎士比亚在11中创作的，莎士比亚在这部剧本中描述了逃离战场的士兵，写道：“我认为，他们飞奔而逃，胆小鬼们。" "

But as Grammarphobia reports，Domestic fowl had been associated with an absence of bravery long before the 17th century . one play from around 1455

但是，据《语法恐惧症》网站报道，早在17世纪以前，鸡就与懦夫有联系。1450年左右创作的一部话剧将懦夫描述为“母鸡的心脏”，诗人约翰斯克尔顿在1529年左右创作的诗《辛白林》中将谄媚无骨的赵信比喻为“鸡心王8”。

hens may have seemed especially timid because roosters were typically characterized as plucky . if you were a leader，a dauntless warrior。or just a dominant presence in the mid-16th century，Someone might call you a "cock "。and when people first started using the term hen to tag submissive or cowardly fold

也许是因为公鸡通常被大胆地描述，比较母鸡显得格外小心谨慎。如果你是16世纪中叶的领袖、无畏的战士或重要人物，有人可以称你为“公鸡”(称赞)。17世纪人们第一次指追随母鸡软弱的人时，经常与公鸡一词并排坐在一起。

Take，for example，the closing stanza of a late 17th-century ballad known as Taylor ' s lamentation 3360

以17世纪末民谣《为何你们不上朝？》的结尾为例。

Ever since then she bears such a sway、

That I am forc'd her Laws to obey。

She is the Cock and I am the Hen，

This is my case，Oh！Pity me then。" "

“从那以后，她说了两句话。

她的命令我都要服从。

她是公鸡，我成了母鸡。

这是我的命运，嘿，可怜可怜我吧。”。

The sexist subtext here isn ' t exactly hidden 3360 female chickens，like female humans，are characterized as subdued and faint-hot Theso it seems possible that the coward connotation caught on partly because the term also worked as a more general insult，too .

从这里可以看出行距是性别歧视的含蓄意义。母鸡被描绘成像女人一样胆小的形象，只能服从勇敢强大的雄性。只要剧本反转，可怜的男人就要受到同情。幸运的是，随着时间的推移，不带有强烈成色的chicken一词获胜。母鸡和公鸡都叫chicken。虽然原因不清楚。17世纪前后，用鸡(chicken)来称呼傻瓜的用法首次出现在印刷品上，这可能是鹅拥有的傻瓜意义上的衍生用法。因此，鸡所具有的懦夫的含义中，有一部分可能是因为这个词具有更普遍的侮辱性含义。

英语来源：Mental Floss

翻译编辑：丹尼

资料来源：中国日报网